Musicians

Over the years, many talented musicians have graced the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble with their presence.

Below are current and past members and some of our recent collaborators.

Marika Fischer Hoyt

In Memoriam:

Marika Fischer Hoyt passed away on February 21, 2023. In addition to appearing with the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble she was a member of the Madison Symphony, Madison Bach Musicians, and many other orchestras and ensembles. She was a founding member of the Ancora Quartet, Sonata à Quattro, and Just Bach, and revived Madison's Bach Around the Clock festival. She was a colleague and friend and we miss her.

Mimmi Fulmer

Soprano Mimmi Fulmer performs repertoire ranging from early music to premieres of works written for her. She has appeared as soloist at the Aspen Music Festival, Kennedy Center, CAMI Hall, the Meadowlark Festival, and the Walker Art Center, and her career includes premieres of nine roles in eight operas. Her degree from Princeton University and her family heritage are the foundation for her performance of and research on Nordic songs and contemporary American music. She has presented programs of Nordic repertoire throughout the US, and is the editor of “Midnight Sun”, a three-volume anthology of songs from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Her book about “Vision and Prayer” by Milton Babbitt was published in 2016. She has recorded with the Centaur, Albany, Innova, and CRI labels, and her solo CD, “About Time”, was called “a gratifying testimony to …composers in America” by Opera News online and “a spectacular show” by American Record Guide. Ms. Fulmer is Professor of Voice and Opera at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nathan Giglierano

Violinist Nathan Giglierano has performed across Europe, Central and North America. Nathan graduated with his Bachelor’s in Music from Oberlin Conservatory, where he studied with Marilyn McDonald, and recently earned his Master’s degree from UW-Madison under the tutelage of David Perry. Nathan also served as a teaching assistant in the Music Theory department at UW-Madison. In addition to playing and teaching music, Nathan loves photography and cooking with his wife, Gillian.

photo by Kent Schweitzer

Harpsichordist and historical performance enthusiast, Sean Kleve, is dedicated to the wide world of historical keyboard instruments and what they can tell us about the repertoire of the past. As a long-time performer of Bach on modern and non-traditional instruments, Sean recently dove into the wide world of harpsichord and historical performance. Sean’s particular interests center upon an understanding of figured bass improvisation, historical tuning, the music of J.S. Bach, and early Italian Baroque music from the 17th century. For more information go to http://seanklevemusic.com/

Theresa Koenig

Theresa Koenig performs around the country on Renaissance winds and baroque and modern bassoon. Ms. Koenig is a member of the Lyra Baroque Orchestra, Eliza’s Toyes, Helios Woodwind Quintet and has recently performed with Piffaro Renaissance Band, Chicago's Baroque Band, Ensemble Musical Offering, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and the Prairie Winds Quintet and others. Ms. Koenig made her solo debut as one of three winners in the Milwaukee Symphony’s Young Artist Competition, and has been named winner or finalist is several other competitions.
Ms. Koenig received her Bachelor and Master’s degree from the Indiana University Jacob School of Music. While there she was awarded the illustrious performer’s certificate. Ms. Koenig was the first bassoonist to receive the Paul Collins Distinguished Fellowship at UW-Madison, where she completed her Doctor of Musical Arts Degree. She currently resides in Germany.

Brett Lipshutz began his love affair with the flute at the age of 7. After reading an article in Flute Talk Magazine at the tender age of 10, he saw his first Baroque flute in a photo of Robert Willoughby. From that day in 1984, he was destined to play it. In 1992, as a bassoon performance major at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he met Jane Bowers and began learning about the rich repertoire and style of the French Baroque. He has played with the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble and the Madison Bach Musicians. He is passionate about education, and currently participates Milwaukee Symphony ACE program.

In addition to Baroque music, he is a busy Irish flute player. He has taught flute and whistle for Milwaukee Irish Fest, The Grand Canyon Celtic Arts Academy, and the UWM String-Along weekend and the Association Irlandaise in Paris, France, as well as privately.
He has played for theater projects, radio appearances, concerts and education programs, and often plays for feiseanna, set dances and ceilis. He currently plays flute and bombarde with the ensemble Myserk. He currently also teaches French at University School of Milwaukee. w ww.brettlipshutz.com

Chelsie Propst

Soprano Chelsie Propst is an active performer based in Madison, WI. Her musical interests bookend the spectrum of western music--beginning with chant and early concert music and ending with contemporary classical compositions. She is also an advocate for reviving the American art song tradition in concert repertoire.

Chelsie is a member of the Rose Ensemble and Mirandola, both located in Saint Paul, MN, and Madison-based ensembles, the Madison Choral Project and Hearing Voices, a vocal project affiliated with Milwaukee's Present Music. She also has appeared as a guest artist with acclaimed early music ensembles, Liber and Piffaro. Chelsie regularly performs with the Madison Bach Musicians and various chamber ensembles.
In addition to her ensemble work, Chelsie regularly appears as a recitalist and concert soloist in the Midwest. Recent stage appearances include Second Woman in Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, L'Amour in Rameau's Pygmalion, Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Belinda in Dido & Aeneas.

Chelsie is on faculty for the Madison Early Music Festival, where she teaches a variety of classes and regularly appears as a soloist. She was a finalist in Wisconsin Public Radio’s 2012 Neale-Silva Young Artists’ Competition and UW-Madison’s 2013 Concerto Competition. She also attended SongFest in 2012, where she was delighted to work with some of the greatest American art song composers of our day.

She is currently pursuing a PhD in Historical Musicology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is writing a dissertation on melodic ornamentation in trouvère chansons. Chelsie holds a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from UW-Madison and Bachelor of Arts degrees in Sacred Music and Voice Performance from Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina. Chelsie also teaches private voice lessons in the Madison area.

Gerrod Pagenkopf

Guest artist with WBE, countertenor Gerrod Pagenkopf has been praised by the Houston Chronicle as having “an elegant bearing and a sweet, even sound,” and by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as “emit[ting] one gorgeous mellifluousness after another.” Mr. Pagenkopf made his professional operatic debut in October 2008 with Amarillo Opera as Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus. Other opera credits include the title roles in Actéon, Orlando, Rinaldo, Ottone (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Tolomeo (Giulio Cesare), Arsamenes (Serse), Public Opinion (Orpheus in the Undeworld), Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and the Refugee (Flight).

As a concert soloist, Mr. Pagenkopf has performed with ensembles including Ars Lyrica Houston, Mercury Baroque, the Bach Society of Houston, the Houston Chamber Choir, the Green Bay Symphony, the Bel Canto Chorus of Milwaukee, Masterworks Chorale of Boston, Exsultemus, the Blue Heron Ensemble, Aston Magna Festival, La Donna Musicale, and Newton Baroque. Mr. Pagenkopf has performed as soloist in such masterworks as Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt; Bach’s Passions, Magnificat, and Mass in B Minor; Vivaldi’s Gloria and Dixit Dominus; as well as numerous cantatas, oratorios, and other liturgical works of Alessandro Scarlatti, Caldara, and Telemann.

Gerrod currently is a member of Chanticleer.

Sigrun Paust

Growing up in Germany, Sigrun Paust has studied the recorder since first grade. Despite moving on to the piano, she returned to her instrument of passion, the recorder during middle school. During her high school years she had the privilege to study with former students of Frans Brüggen and Michala Petri, study music theory through Mannheim University and play with a recorder quartet, which placed at the state level of “Jugend Musiziert” youth music competition in Rheinland-Pfalz - Germany. Ms Paust played harpsichord in a school opera production as well as a local early music group.

Once in the US Ms Paust played with the Early Music Ensemble under Jeanne Swack at UW Madison and also stumbled upon Bruce Bengtson at Luther Memorial, with whom she played a few recitals and whose artistic talent she greatly admires. While she is following her non-musical passions of counseling and teaching as her full time occupation, Ms Paust was very excited and grateful to join the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble in late 2016 and greatly enjoys performing with the ensemble.

Mary Perkinson

A native of Philadelphia. Mary Perkinson is an award winning artist, educator, and community leader. She performs with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Sound Ensemble Wisconsin, Madison Bach Musicians, the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, and has toured internationally with the Broadway musical The King and I.

She has held positions at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, the Madison Metropolitan School District, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, the UW-Madison Summer Music Clinic, Madison Music Makers, and the D211 UW-Whitewater Chamber Music Retreat. Most recently she represented the Madison Symphony Orchestra as an artist-in-residence with the Overture Center’s Arts Education Initiative. An avid chamber musician, she has been a guest at the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, performed on Live from the Chazen for WPR, and collaborated with faculty from UW-Madison, UW-Whitewater, and UW-Platteville.

Dr. Perkinson graduated magna cum laude from Boston University, received a Graduate Performance Diploma from The Boston Conservatory, and received the Masters of Music, K-12 Music Certification, and Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Perkinson is an Assistant Professor at the College of Communication, Fine Arts, and Media at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.

Charlie Rasmussen

Charlie Rasmussen enjoys an active career as both a Baroque and modern cellist. He is currently a cello faculty member at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee.

As a Baroque cellist, Mr. Rasmussen has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe Series with the New York Continuo Collective. He has performed as principal cellist with Madison Bach Musicians and soloed with Greensboro Early Music. Mr. Rasmussen previously performed with the Vitali Ensemble and has performed in multiple early music recitals at the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music. Mr. Rasmussen is an currently an active performer with the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble and Sonata à Quattro.

Mr. Rasmussen has presented lecture recitals about historical performance practice at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, for the Colorado Symphony Study Group in Denver, and at locations around Milwaukee. He has presented early music masterclasses and workshops at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and for Fairfield County (CT) CelloFest.

Mr. Rasmussen's first solo CD, 11 Capricci by Joseph Dall'Abaco, was released by Centaur Records in 2018. More recently he recorded, together with Anton TenWolde, Tommasso Giordani's Six duos for two cellos, opus 18.

Mr. Rasmussen holds a Master of Music degree in modern cello performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Bachelor of the Arts degree from Luther College in Decorah, IA. Mr. Rasmussen studied Baroque cello at the American Bach Soloists Academy, Magnolia Baroque Institute, and at Phoebe Carrai's Baroque Cello Bootcamp.

Consuelo Sañudo

Consuelo Sañudo has sung with Sequentia, Weser Renaissance, Las Huelgas Ensemble, and Bonnen, as well as performing solo stage work (title role, Arianna by Alexander Goehr, Speranza in L'Orfeo by Monteverdi, one of two roles in Liebe Tod Kaiserwalzer, an experimental performance), oratorio and contemporary music in Germany between 1990 and 1999. During that time she sang at the Moscow Alternativa and at the Frank Zappa Festival (Brussels Radio). In 2009 she portrayed the Barmaid in the premiere of David Dies' opera Hills like White Elephants. Since 2008 she has been giving recitals with pianist and composer Jeff Gibbens, with special emphasis on Debussy, Ravel and Schoenberg. In January 2014 she was the featured singer with “Serenata,” a freelance chamber music ensemble in Santa Fe, NM, and she and Jeff performed at St. John’s College in Santa Fe in 2015. In October 2017 she rejoined colleagues in Cologne, Germany, for a recording of Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo virtutum, and in May 2018 she will be singing the alto solo part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Beloit Janesville Symphony. Consuelo currently resides in Santa Fe, NM.

Monica Steger

Flutist, keyboardist, vocalist, director, composer, arranger, and educator Monica Steger has performed in chamber ensembles specializing in Baroque repertoire since 1998. Her studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison covered the theoretical, historical, and performing aspects of music. Her coursework in Madison led her to researching the secular cantatas of Christoph Graupner in Darmstadt, Germany on a Fulbright. She is also interested in performing newly-composed music for traverso and harpsichord. She currently performs and teaches in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Anton TenWolde, photo by Kent Sweitzer

Anton TenWolde, cellist, originally from the Netherlands, studied with Sylvain van Amerongen, cellist with the The Hague Philharmonic Orchestra (Residentie Orkest). While earning his degree in Applied Physics at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Anton performed with Ton Koopman, and toured with the Netherlands Student Chamber Orchestra and the Netherlands Student Baroque Orchestra. In 1973 he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he worked for 27 years as a Research Physicist and Project Leader at the Forest Products Laboratory. For many years he played principal cello with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. He is the founding member of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble and regularly performs with the Madison Bach Musicians and the Fort Wayne Bach Collegium. Anton recorded his first CD, together with Charlie Rasmussen, of Tommasso Giordani's Six duos for two cellos, opus 18. This is the first recording on period instruments of all six sonatas.

Patrick Terry

Max Yount

Patrick Terry, countertenor, guest artist.

Winner of the Loveday Song Prize at the 2017 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Second Prize at the 2019 Handel Singing Competition and a Samling Artist, Patrick Terry was born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin.

Whilst a member of the Olivier Award nominated Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Patrick Terry travelled to Japan to appear in Le Promesse (Gala Concert by Young Opera Singers Tomorrow of the World) at the New National Theatre, Tokyo, and sang Arsace Berenice and Artemis in Hans Werner Henze’s Phaedra at the Linbury Theatre. He also sang the title role in Act 3 of Orfeo ed Euridice for the 2019 Jette Parker Young Artist Summer performance on the main stage and gave a recital in The Crush Room.
Other operatic engagements have included Serafino The Intelligence Park for Music Theatre Wales in association with The Royal Opera House, The Boy / Angel 1 Written On Skin with the Melos Sinfonia, Oberon A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Chicago Summer Opera, Rosencrantz in Brett Dean’s Hamlet for Glyndebourne On Tour and Oper Köln, Ruggiero Alcina and the title role in Teseo with La Nuova Musica and Eustazio Rinaldo for Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
Concert highlights have included J. S. Bach Magnificat and Handel The Choice of Hercules with the London Handel Orchestra, a Wigmore Hall appearance with Imogen Cooper Beyond Jerusalem: The Life and Times of Sir Charles Hubert Parry at the London Song Festival, whilst his broadcasts include In Tune for BBC Radio 3.
Patrick Terry earned his Bachelor’s of Music from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, where he studied with Adriana Zabala, and graduated from London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Caitlin Hulcup and Michael Chance on the Opera Course with generous support from the Josephine Baker Trust and the John J Adams Scholarship, in Summer 2018.
Selected for the 2018 Leeds Lieder Young Artists Festival, further competition success has included Second Prize at the 2019 Handel Singing Competition, Second Prize at the 2015 Joan Chissell Schumann Lieder Competition, winning the 2014 Maureen Lehane Vocal Award and winning the 2017 Richard Lewis / Jean Shanks Award.
Current engagements include rescheduled performances as Ruggiero Alcina with Opera North, a recording as Orgando Amadigi di Gaula with the Early Opera Company, Andronico Tamerlano for The Grange Festival and the world première of Matt Rogers’ Honest Skin for a Crush Room Recital at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Engagements during 2022 / 2023 currently include the title role in Rinaldo for his debut at Minnesota Opera.

Max H. Yount, organist, harpsichordist and composer, is Emeritus Professor and former Chair of the Department of Music at Beloit College where he taught music history and theory of all levels; he still teaches organ, harpsichord and composition at the college. He has taught courses in Easterrn European Folk Music, Women in Music, American music, and performance practice. As past Dean of the American Guild of organists, Madison chapter, and past President of the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society (MHKS), he has presented many recitals and papers at meetings of the latter and at the American Musicological Society, Midwest Chapter. He has made several concert tours of Germany as organist and harpsichordist. At home his many performances as soloist and in ensemble have recently included concertos (Bach's Fifth Brandenburg, and Poulenc’s Concert Champêtre) with area orchestras. Yount is Director of Music and organist of First Congregational Church in Beloit, where he organizes a concert series, MUSICA MAXIMA, which presents international and local artists. He serves as the harpsichordist of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble. In 2009-2010, Yount served as harpsichordist in PROJECT RAMEAU, with baroque violinist, Edith Hines, and viola da gambist, Eric Miller, in performing all five of Rameau’s Pièces de Clavecin en Concerts in Madison and Beloit, Wisconsin, and at the University of Iowa.

With B. Mus. From Oberlin College and M. M., and D.M. A. from Eastman School of Music, he has studied organ with Fenner Douglass and David Craighead, harpsichord with Isolde Ahlgrimm and Louis Bagger, and composition with Louis Mennini.

Recent compositions have included Duo for violin and harpsichord, performed at the MHKS meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota in April 2007; Symphony in Three Movements, performed by the Beloit Janesville Symphony Orchestra in March 2007; three pieces premiered in January 2006, including Concerto for harpsichord, broadcast over Wisconsin Public Radio; and Sonata for flute, gamba and harpsichord performed at the MHKS meeting at Northwestern University in 2004. A new organ work, Our God, Our Help, was premiered in October 2007.